Grant awaiting news of Drogba lay-off

Ivory Coast striker Drogba went under the knife on Saturday to correct an ongoing knee injury with the club claiming the operation went without mishap. Grant, speaking a 2-0 victory over Sunderland, refused to give a date for his comeback but suggested he may be on club duty in January - and not at the African Nations Cup.

He said: "Are we losing him to the African Nations Cup? We want him to be well. If his knee is okay and he plays in the competition then good, but if he can also play for Chelsea then that is also good. What's important now is that he feels good."

He added: "The future is not easy without Drogba but I didn't come to this club for an easy life. We didn't want him to be injured. The operation looks like it went well. Drogba is in good shape and we want to keep him like that.

"He had a problem with his knee, we waited a few days and then he knocked it again last night (Friday). He needed the operation and there was nothing we could do about it. We need to wait and see how long he'll be out for. We'll know exactly over the next two or three days."

Andriy Shevchenko was given Drogba's place in the starting line-up and he responded by opening the scoring with an expert finish of Salomon Kalou's cross.

The goal topped an impressive display from the heavily-maligned Ukraine striker and Grant was delighted to see him firing on all cylinders. He said: "Shevchenko is a great striker, he knows how to score goals and is intelligent. He has now scored four goals this season. Last season he scored 16, yet everyone is disappointed. He's been scoring since he was a little child and he did it for us today."

Sunderland boss Roy Keane admitted that Frank Lampard's late penalty extinguished his side's slim hopes of snatching a point. And Keane was also disappointed with the dismissal of Liam Miller, who was shown a straight red card for shoving Claudio Pizarro in the face.

He said: "The penalty killed the game for us. We were having a decent spell and when you're 1-0 down you always have a chance, especially given how many late goals we've scored this season.

"For the red card, there's no doubt that when you raise your hands you don't give the referee any choice. But it could have been avoided. There was a big issue made out of Liam's tackle on John Terry."